When it really happens: SHTF...

[Ovidio]

The more the situation develops here, the less people learn in other places.
I don’t really get that...
The way to go is to keep quiet and restrain ourselves, in order not to scare anybody and keep the situation under control.
Panic would get people killed.
There is food enough for everybody if people keep their heads.
But I really see that lots of people are morally and psychologically weak, soft, unfit for anything that is not the comfortable lifestyle they are used to.
Some military life would have helped many...

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[mrclark303]

The more the situation develops here, the less people learn in other places.
I don’t really get that...
The way to go is to keep quiet and restrain ourselves, in order not to scare anybody and keep the situation under control.
Panic would get people killed.
There is food enough for everybody if people keep their heads.
But I really see that lots of people are morally and psychologically weak, soft, unfit for anything that is not the comfortable lifestyle they are used to.
Some military life would have helped many...

Absolutely Oviedo, very well said. I am absolutely disgusted by the behaviour of some of my fellow countrymen.

These selfish 'individuals' are stressing the supply system for absolutely no reason!

I would happily send in the army, make them put everything back on the shelves and kick their selfish asses all around the supermarket carparks!

[Gil Boyd]

Ovidio,
I totally agree. It must be so clear for you guys in Italy where the virus has peaked and still people continue to die, in terms of what to do and what not to do from your hard fought experience.
Sadly the "pack" mentality is at play when anything like this hits the world. It was the same with Ebola, which was believed to be spreading at an alarming rate, but people who dealt with it, mostly Military Medics like my son, attacked it head on and defeated its spread.
They put their lives on the line as they do everyday.
Ebola virus would have killed everyone had they not been brave, and thats right across the world. He told me the other night, they have only in the last few weeks seen the virus decline in Sierra Leone as things start to level out.
He continues to serve in Kenya now as an Army Medic visiting hospitals in Nairobi in readiness for COVID-19 as part of the UK's assistance to the country.
As you said earlier, it is a pack mentality that leads to selfishness and greed, and it is these individuals we have here in the UK, who do need to look at Italy and the fully stocked supermarkets, and step back and reassess their actions.
To see a Staff Nurse cry having done 63 hours non stop in London wanting to go home to rest before she went back to treat those suffering, to find NOTHING in the supermarket to sustain her health, I think has had an impact on these bastards as it aired on national television on all channels!

We will come through this, with medical workers dedicated to making this a safer world, and it is the Military and specialist test centres who know how to defeat a "Manmade Virus"!!
Stay safe mate

[GeeRam]

To see a Staff Nurse cry having done 63 hours non stop in London wanting to go home to rest before she went back to treat those suffering, to find NOTHING in the supermarket to sustain her health, I think has had an impact on these bastards as it aired on national television on all channels!

I doubt it.

But, I also don't understand why the NHS/Govt haven't put measures in place to provide for NHS staff. They should have made arrangements for priority online deliveries to NHS staff at their place of work that could collect immediately on ending shift.

[Gil Boyd]

In the absence of finite advice on how to deal with the virus if it hits you at home other than to self isolate and stay inside and don't mix, spelled out by the Governments, here is a different response from an expert who served hard to prevent its spread which is worth reading, especially the hot drinks and how to treat it.
I personally think it has some great information in it, but one has to follow LOCAL advice too to compliment your recovery.

From a young researcher who had been transferred from Shenzhen to Wuhan to collaborate with the task force that is fighting the coronavirus epidemic, we receive and willingly transmit to all of this clear, simple and accessible information, which describe exactly what it is. The virus, how it transfers from one person to another and how it can be neutralized in everyday life.
Corona virus infection does not cause a cold with a dripping nose or catarrhal cough, but a dry and dry cough: this is the easiest thing to know.
The virus does not resist heat and dies if exposed to temperatures of 26-27 degrees: therefore often consume hot drinks such as tea, herbal tea and broth during the day, or simply hot water: hot liquids neutralize the virus and it is not difficult to drink them. Avoid drinking ice water or eating ice cubes or snow for those in the mountains (children)!
For those who can do it, expose yourself to the sun!
1. The virus crown is quite large (diameter about 400-500 nanometres), therefore any type of mask can stop it: in normal life, special masks are not needed.
On the other hand, the situation is different for doctors and health professionals who are exposed to heavy virus loads and have to use special equipment.
If an infected person sneezes in front of you, three meters away they will drop the virus on the ground and prevent it from landing on you.
2. When the virus is found on metal surfaces, it survives for about 12 hours. So when you touch metal surfaces such as handles, doors, appliances, supports on trams, etc., wash your hands well and disinfect them carefully.
3. The virus can live nested in clothes and fabrics for about 6/12 hours: normal detergents can kill it. For clothes that cannot be washed every day, if you can expose them to the sun and the virus will die.
How it manifests itself:
1. The virus first installs itself in the throat, causing inflammation and a dry throat sensation: this symptom can last for 3/4 days.
2. The virus travels through the humidity present in the airways, descends into the trachea and installs in the lung, causing pneumonia. This step takes about 5/6 days.
3. Pneumonia occurs with high fever and difficulty breathing, it is not accompanied by the classic cold. But you may have the feeling of drowning. In this case, contact your doctor immediately.
How can you avoid it:
1. Virus transmission occurs mostly by direct contact, touching tissues or materials on which the virus is present: washing hands frequently is essential.
The virus only survives on your hands for about ten minutes, but in ten minutes many things can happen: rub your eyes or scratch your nose for example, and allow the virus to enter your throat...
So, for your own good and for the good of others, wash your hands very often and disinfect them!
2. You can gargle with a disinfectant solution that eliminates or minimizes the amount of virus that could enter your throat: in doing so, you eliminate it before it goes down into the trachea and then into the lungs.
3. Disinfect the PC keyboard and mobile phones
The new coronavirus NCP * may not show signs of infection for many days, * before which it cannot be known if a person is infected. But by the time you have a fever and / or cough and go to the hospital, your lungs are usually already in 50% fibrosis and it's too late!
Taiwanese experts suggest doing a simple check that we can do on our own every morning:
Take a deep breath and hold your breath for more than 10 seconds. If you successfully complete it without coughing, without discomfort, a sense of oppression, etc., this shows that there is no fibrosis in the lungs, indicating essentially no infection.
In such critical times, do this check every morning in a clean air environment!
These are serious and excellent advice from Japanese doctors who treat COVID-19 cases. Everyone should make sure that their mouth and throat are moist, never DRY. Drink a few sips of water at least every 15 minutes. WHY? Even if the virus gets into your mouth ... water or other liquids will sweep it away through the oesophagus and into the stomach. Once in the belly ... Gastric acid in the stomach will kill all the virus. If you don't drink enough water more regularly ... the virus can get into your trumpets and lungs. It is very dangerous.
Share this information with your family, friends and acquaintances, for * solidarity and civic sense *

[Ovidio]

To see a Staff Nurse cry having done 63 hours non stop in London wanting to go home to rest before she went back to treat those suffering, to find NOTHING in the supermarket to sustain her health, I think has had an impact on these bastards as it aired on national television on all channels!

I saw her and felt bad...
But I don’t really think those who did that to her and everybody else will understand.
What I’m finding out in these days is that there are people who think coolly, people who are scared and people who just switch off their civil brain and turn to the beast we all have inside.
I’m worried, I would like to burn and destroy the world out of rage for feeling so powerless...but I don’t and, am ready to bet, will never do it.
Because I have been tought differently, received an education from family and Army which did not include, under any circumstance, that I might step onto others out of panic.
That comes from the upbringing each of us had, but also quite a lot from what life under military rules has tought us all. I thank the Lord that I could do my duty, and that I could do it as an officer in the Alpini.
That has been a life-changer.
And I keep profiting of it!

[Gil Boyd]

As all those that have served will concure with you mate.

---------- Post added at 01:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:42 PM ----------

Cuba's health service has a good rep that will never be mentioned in the Western press. They have a drug that can help with Covid19.

COVID-19 surged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late December 2019 and by January 2020 it had hit Hubei province like a tidal wave, swirling over China and rippling out overseas. The Chinese state rolled into action to combat the spread and care for those infected. Among the 30 medicines the Chinese National Health Commission selected to fight the virus was a Cuban anti-viral drug Interferon Alpha 2b. This drug has been produced in China since 2003, by the enterprise ChangHeber, a Cuban-Chinese joint venture.


Cuban Interferon Alpha 2b has proven effective for viruses with characteristics similar to those of COVID-19. Cuban biotech specialist, Dr Luis Herrera Martinez explained that ‘its use prevents aggravation and complications in patients, reaching that stage that ultimately can result in death.’ Cuba first developed and used interferons to arrest a deadly outbreak of the dengue virus in 1981, and the experience catalysed the development of the island’s now world-leading biotech industry.


The world’s first biotechnology enterprise, Genetech, was founded in San Francisco in 1976, followed by AMGen in Los Angeles in 1980. One year later, the Biological Front, a professional interdisciplinary forum, was set up to develop the industry in Cuba. While most developing countries had little access to the new technologies (recombinant DNA, human gene therapy, biosafety), Cuban biotechnology expanded and took on an increasingly strategic role in both the public health sector and the national economic development plan. It did so despite the US blockade obstructing access to technologies, equipment, materials, finance and even knowledge exchange. Driven by public health demand, it has been characterised by the fast track from research and innovation to trials and application, as the story of Cuban interferon shows.


Interferons are ‘signalling’ proteins produced and released by cells in response to infections which alert nearby cells to heighten their anti-viral defences. They were first identified in 1957 by Jean Lindenmann and Aleck Isaacs in London. In the 1960s Ion Gresser, a US-researcher in Paris, showed that interferons stimulate lymphocytes that attack tumours in mice. In 1970s, US oncologist Randolph Clark Lee, took up this research.


Catching the tail end of US President Carter’s improved relations with Cuba, Dr Clark Lee visited Cuba, met with Fidel Castro and convinced him that interferon was the wonder drug. Shortly afterwards, a Cuban doctor and a haematologist spent time in Dr Clark Lee’s laboratory, returning with the latest research about interferon and more contacts. In March 1981, six Cubans spent 12 days in Finland with the Finnish doctor Kari Cantell, who in the 1970s had isolated interferon from human cells, and had shared the breakthrough by declining to patent the procedure. The Cubans learned to produce large quantities of interferon.


Within 45 days of returning to the island, they had produced their first Cuban batch of interferon, the quality of which was confirmed by Cantell’s laboratory in Finland. Just in time, it turned out. Weeks later Cuba was struck by an epidemic of dengue, a disease transmitted by mosquitos. It was the first time this particularly virulent strand, which can trigger life-threatening dengue haemorrhagic fever, had appeared in the Americas. The epidemic affected 340,000 Cubans with 11,000 new cases diagnosed every day at its peak. 180 people died, including 101 children. The Cubans suspected the CIA of releasing the virus. The US State Department denied it, although a recent Cuban investigation claims to provide evidence that the epidemic was introduced from the US.


Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health authorised the use of Cuban interferon to halt the dengue outbreak. It was done at great speed. Mortality declined. In their historical account, Cuban medical scientists Caballero Torres and Lopez Matilla wrote: ‘It was the most extensive prevention and therapy event with interferon carried out in the world. Cuba began to hold regular symposia, which quickly drew international attention’. The first international event in 1983 was prestigious; Cantell gave the keynote speech and Clark attended with Albert Bruce Sabin, the Polish American scientist who developed the oral polio vaccine.


Convinced about the contribution and strategic importance of innovative medical science, the Cuban government set up the Biological Front in 1981 to develop the sector. Cuban scientists went abroad to study, many in western countries. Their research took on more innovative paths, as they experimented with cloning interferon. By the time Cantell returned to Cuba in 1986, the Cubans had developed the recombinant human Interferon Alfa 2b which has benefited thousands of Cubans since then. With significant state investment, Cuba’s showpiece Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) was opened in 1986. By then Cuba was submerged in another health crisis, a serious outbreak of Meningitis B, which further spurred Cuba’s biotechnology sector.


Cuba’s Meningitis Miracle


In 1976, Cuba was struck by meningitis B and C outbreaks. Since 1916 only a few isolated cases had been seen on the island. Internationally, vaccines existed for Meningitis A and C, but not for B. Cuban health authorities secured a vaccine from a French pharmaceutical company to immunise the population against type C Meningitis. However, in the following years, cases of type B Meningitis began to rise. A team of specialists from different medical science centres was established, led by a woman biochemist, Concepción Campa, to work intensively on finding a vaccine.


By 1984 Meningitis B had become the main health problem in Cuba. After six years of intense work, Campa’s team produced the world’s first successful Meningitis B vaccine in 1988. A member of Campa’s team, Dr Gustavo Sierra recalled their joy: ‘this was the moment when we could say it works, and it works in the worst conditions, under pressure of an epidemic and among people of the most vulnerable age.’ During 1989 and 1990, three million Cubans, those most at risk, were vaccinated. Subsequently, 250,000 young people were vaccinated with the VA-MENGOC-BC vaccine, a combined Meningitis B and C vaccination. It recorded 95% efficacy overall, with 97% in the high-risk three months to six years age group. Cuba’s Meningitis B vaccine was awarded a UN Gold Medal for global innovation. This was Cuba’s meningitis miracle.


‘I tell colleagues that one can work 30 years, 14 hours a day just to enjoy that graph for 10 minutes,’ Agustin Lage, Director of the Centro for Molecular Immunology (CIM) told me, referring to an illustration of the rise and sudden fall of Meningitis B cases in Cuba. ‘Biotechnology started for this. But then the possibilities of developing an export industry opened up, and today, Cuban biotechnology exports to 50 countries.’


Since its first application to combat dengue fever, Cuba’s interferon has shown its efficacy and safety in the therapy of viral diseases including Hepatitis B and C, shingles, HIV-AIDS and dengue. Because it interferes with viral multiplication within cells, it has also been used in the treatment of different types of carcinomas. Time will tell if Interferon Alfa 2b proves to be the wonder drug as far as COVID-19 goes.

[Patrick Chadwick]

It must be so clear for you guys in Italy where the virus has peaked

Gil, I truly regret having to say this, but the virus has not peaked. For anyone who is interested in the statistics (collated by Johns Hopkins and the WHO, I understand), please go to Worldometer

Coronavirus Update (Live): 338,092 Cases and 14,456 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer

In Italy, the daily increase is RISING.

Italy Coronavirus: 59,138 Cases and 5,476 Deaths - Worldometer

In other words, the infection is accelerating. It has NOT peaked. And what really disturbs me is that since the Italian emergency measures were activated on 10. March and the incubation period is supposed to be typically 2-4 days, in the 12 days that have since elapsed there should have been a slowing in new infections. That has not occurred. Which raises the question as to whether there is something about the method of transmission that has not yet been recognized.

As for the US, the curve of new infections is extremely steep. In fact, if you choose the logarithmic scaling option it is a roughly straight line, and from this one can see that if nothing happens to slow the virus down, then the USA is heading for 100,000 cases by the end of the month - maybe the end of next week. Then 1 million 10 days later ... and then... there really is no time at all for academic discussion.

And I must stress that this is not my opinion, or something "heard down at the pub", but serious - very serious - figures from an authoritative source.



If the social distancing method does not work, then we are all in very, very deep trouble.

[Ovidio]

Sorry, I couldn’t refrain myself...

Attachment 106371